I wrote a short story this week which I thought was good. I wrote it for a website where you can get peer review for your work, including markings. Although I got entirely positive comments from two of the three markers the average score was disappointing. Also the third marker said that he or she would have liked more characterisation.

When I read my piece again, and talked it over with my trusty home critic, I recognised that the comment about characterisation was fair. I think now I was being complacent about what I’d written. My trusty home critic says, and I think he’s right, that I tend to see my work as good or bad, never anything in between. He has a point.

There is something else I’m musing on. I’m immersed at present in the writing of a novella, in which I certainly hope I am creating believable characters! Maybe in writing this short piece in the middle of working on the longer one I carried over my internal thoughts on at least one character who has similarities to someone in the longer piece. Something to be careful about.

A similar thing happened when, a while ago, I wrote a story from the point of view of one person and subsequently from another’s point of view. The second one didn’t work so well, and when I thought about why it was because of my assumptions from the first story, which people reading the second without the first didn’t and couldn’t understand.

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About Cath Barton

Cath Barton is an English writer who lives in South Wales. In June 2017 she was awarded the New Welsh Writing AmeriCymru Prize for the Novella. She is active in the on-line community of writers of flash fiction and is a regular contributor to the on-line critical hub for Welsh arts and culture, Wales Arts Review.